Watergate: An epic tragedy of loyalty and paranoia

Recently I attended a screening of the 1976 film, “All the President’s Men”, for the first time. As I’m sure many of you already know the classic is about the Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who reported on and revealed the Watergate scandal to the United States with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman staring in their respective roles.

I am currently a journalism major at Western Kentucky University with a strong interest in Political Science so I was quite interested in viewing this film as you can imagine. Like many others, I learned the basics of the Watergate scandal and why it led to Nixon’s resignation, the attempted cover-up, Ford’s pardon and you probably know the gist of it. However, I’d like to look a bit deeper into Nixon and Watergate. The consensus taught in school that Nixon broke the law and payed the price is true but there’s more to it than that. Beneath the wall of scandal and obstruction lies a sacred value, loyalty, and it cost the Nixon administration everything.

Years ago, I originally thought that Nixon had ordered the break in at Watergate because I figured why else would he cover it up? Nixon ordered no invasion of the Democratic National Committee’s HQ. Five men from Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President broke in on their own accord to commit illegal espionage. I’ve heard stories from a History professor here at WKU that Nixon threw an ashtray against the wall when he found out about the break-in after the five burglars had been caught red-handed by the police. This was when the cover-up came into play as Nixon arranged for large sums of money to be payed to the burglars as “hush money”. Nixon had a choice here and it wasn’t necessarily one of good and evil. Nixon could’ve reported the true reasons for the break-in to the police and had the men responsible arrested without serious harm coming to his personally. Two of Nixon’s aides, H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, who were also personally close the president were major figures in the attempted cover-up. Nixon’s other feasible option was to throw these two men (likely among others) under the bus if he truly had no knowledge of the break-in prior to its inception. Nixon knew these men, he knew them well and was even quoted as referring to Haldeman like a brother after Haldeman was essentially forced to resign by Nixon in 1973 along with Ehrlichman since the scandal was becoming clearer to the rest of the United States. When Nixon resigned the following year, Haldeman asked him for a full pardon which Nixon refused. Had Nixon dealt with his friends in an equivalent manner after he learned of the break-in history would’ve turned out much differently for the president at least.

Loyalty was what I believed kept Nixon from turning in Haldeman and Ehrlichman prior to the reelection. Nixon was very firm in his way of doing things and he was certainly loyal to his aides as they were to him up until it was too late to pull either one out of the fire; it’s just that Nixon was the last one to burn up until Ford saved his ass that is.

The real tragedy of Watergate isn’t just the cost of loyalty but the consequence of paranoia as well. Nixon has been regarded as being exceptionally paranoid for decades as he recorded nearly everything in the Oval office and that’s what truly led to his downfall. Nixon was reelected by a record landslide in 1972 so any type of espionage wasn’t necessary in the slightest sense! Nixon had the damn thing in the bag but he just couldn’t accept it. He was so paranoid that he dragged out a whole cover-up for a crime he didn’t order and even recorded nearly every discussion he had about it.

You know some say he got Gerald Ford as his VP because Nixon feared he would be kicked out of office and wanted the next president to pardon him. Did he collaborate with Ford for a pardon? Maybe yes and maybe no. All we really know is that Watergate created something out of nothing. Nixon still would’ve been reelected but his loyalty and paranoia got in the way and it cost him everything.